


all you need to make a movie is a gun and a girl

by postcardmystery



Category: James Bond (Movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Bombs, F/M, Murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-15
Updated: 2012-10-15
Packaged: 2017-11-16 09:21:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/537911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/postcardmystery/pseuds/postcardmystery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s a story here, but this much, you should already know: that there are two men sitting in Room 13 of the National Portrait Gallery. One of them is the most dangerous man in Europe. The other one’s James Bond.</p>
            </blockquote>





	all you need to make a movie is a gun and a girl

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warnings for murder, bombs, and weaponry of all kinds, as well as an attempted mugging.
> 
> (And Moneypenny is Romola Garai, obviously. She's also very much not the Moneypenny of the films, and doesn't do the same job, as I wrote this before the film was released and before we knew that Eve was Moneypenny, but never fear, I ship them equally as hard now she's concrete and real-- if not even more so.)

“You look about twelve,” 007 says, his eyes flickering disdainfully over the lapel of a Barbour anorak, and Q smirks, says, “You look like a bloke who starts unprovoked fights in a pub, but you don’t see me bringing it up.”  
  
“You just did,” says 007, a slight frisson of surprise in his voice, and Q hunches forward, presses a tiny button on the side of his watch, says, “Yes, Bond. I suppose I  _did_ , didn’t I?”  
  
  
  
  
  
There’s a story here, but this much, you should already know: that there are two men sitting in Room 13 of the National Portrait Gallery. One of them is the most dangerous man in Europe. The other one’s James Bond.  
  
  
  
  
  
Q is not a name. Q is a designation, a title, a letter that looks like a codename that looks like a cypher that doesn’t tell you anything at all. (Other than ‘quartermaster’, and even that doesn’t tell you all that much.) Q is not a name, but it is all anybody ever calls him. He signs documents with a looping letter, presses one key when he finishes an email, answers the phone not with a greeting but a clipped consonant.  
  
Q is not a name, and it is not a name for a reason. So he’s five nine. So he’s a hundred and thirty pounds. So he looks like you could knock him over with a feather. He can crash the US State Department’s entire computer network in less than three minutes.  
  
Q is not a name, and it is not a number, either. You don’t give men like Q numbers. They know what to do with them, you see.  
  
  
  
  
  
“How was he?”  
  
Her hair is blonde and curling, and her shoes always shine. She can type a hundred and twenty words a minute, speak six languages, and get the fourth floor coffee machine working. She’s a librarian, and James Bond thinks she’s a secretary. She’s the head of the MI6 archive service, and she knows where all the bodies are buried. Yes, that’s right. Literally.  
  
“About what I expected,” says Q, gratefully accepting a coffee mug, “Does he really think your name is Moneypenny, by the way? He seemed rather certain, I didn’t want to disabuse him of the notion, it was much too funny.”  
  
“Yes,” says Moneypenny, matching his smirk, “And don’t you dare tell him any different, Geoff.”  
  
“Well,” says Q, sighing, “It’s not like he has the ability to find it out by himself. He thinks throwing your phone against the wall is the secret key to getting it to work. He assures me that if everybody knew that us ‘clueless computer geeks’ would be out of a job. I am almost one hundred percent sure that he wasn’t joking. God help us all, London’ll be in smithereens before the week’s out.”  
  
“Yes, well,” says Moneypenny, tapping him lightly on the wrist and walking away, “Remember what happened with 009, it could have been worse.”  
  
“He was only out for three days,” mutters Q, indignantly, under his breath, but when Moneypenny pauses at the door to smile at him, he can’t help himself, smiles back.  
  
  
  
  
  
He tells his Mum and Dad that he provides tech support for the Food Standards Agency, which has led to many a lament about a career path gone wrong over Sunday brunch. He tells people at parties the same thing, and it’s appropriately boring enough that nobody ever asks him anything else, which is how he likes it. He tells his mates not to bait the agents, even if they do make it really bloody easy, because all of his friends work for Six in various technical or tactical capacities. He tells Moneypenny everything, even that time he almost got made and had to move out of a rather nice flat in north London and into a recently condemned building in Clapham. She only laughed at him a little when he told her that he crashed the surveillance van into a telephone pole, because he’s good at numbers and no one inside would’ve survived that close to a hand grenade; and he found the field agent who’d tried to throw him out of said van by the scruff of his neck crying in the toilets an hour later, so clearly she hadn’t actually found it that funny.  
  
He tells M what she asks for, and what she doesn’t. He’s not usually allowed near ministers, because apparently they find him ‘unsettling’, but he did once tell the Prime Minister not to leave his phone unattended for long periods of time if he liked having legs. (If anyone knows how easy it is to arm a mobile phone into quite a formidable weapon, it’s him.)  
  
He tells the agents how not to die, and sometimes, although  _only_  sometimes, they listen. He tells them how to calculate headshots from a hundred feet away, how to measure the wind and work out the velocity and how to pick the right gun and how to hide it once they’re done. He tells them where to plant the bugs, and how to destroy them if they get caught. On more than one occasion, he’s taught them how to disarm a bomb. On somewhat more occasions, he’s defused the bomb himself, because agents, they just do  _not_  do what they’re told.  
  
He tells Moneypenny everything, and everybody nothing about Moneypenny, and life, as they say, is good.  
  
  
  
  
  
“Bond checked in,” says Moneypenny, leaning against his office door, and Q nods, not looking up from his keyboard, says, “Oh,  _great_. What’s he broken this time?”  
  
“The Indian embassy in Jakarta,” says Moneypenny, and Q snorts, says, “Didn’t follow the instructions about the watch, did he? Nothing new, I suppose.”  
  
“They need you for clean-up,” says Moneypenny, and Q slumps back in his chair, sighs, says, “They know which bits to incinerate, for God’s sake, I’ve shown them this about nine times now.”  
  
“You do know that just because you’ve shown them it doesn’t mean they understand?” says Moneypenny, laughing a little, and Q smirks at her, raises an eyebrow, says, “Don’t I know it.”  
  
“Come over and fix my telly when you get back,” says Moneypenny, turning on her heel, “No arguments, you promised, and I know you’re good for something.”  
  
“ _Bombs_ ,” says Q, laconic, closing his laptop lid, “We’ve already established that.”  
  
  
  
  
  
In Jakarta, Bond is completely unapologetic, as expected.  
  
“You gave me explosives,” he says, “They exploded.”  
  
“No,  _really_?” says Q, looking up from a titanium suitcase full of the charred remains of tech that he is  _absolutely_  not sharing with the Yanks until Christmas, at the very least.  
  
“I thought they didn’t even let your lot out in the field,” says Bond, and Q shrugs, says, “I don’t look like a spy.”  
  
“I’ve noticed,” says Bond, raising an insufferable eyebrow, and Q rocks back on his heels, says, “Yeah, because not looking like a spy, that never comes in handy.”  
  
“It won’t be handy if someone tries to beat seven types of shit out of you,” says Bond, and Q grins, says, “I do build weapons for a living, Bond.”  
  
“So what?” says Bond, nudging at the blackened remains of an office chair with his foot, and Q snaps the suitcase shut, says, “It means, Bond, that I know how to  _use_  them if I bloody well need to.”  
  
“That,” says Bond, totally unimpressed, “I’d like to see.”  
  
“Keep losing my tech in countries thousands of miles away from one of my safehouses,” says Q, hefting up the suitcase and then pulling at the loose edge of his Dungeons & Dragons t-shirt, “And I can guarantee that you’ll find out.”  
  
  
  
  
  
“Tell me you didn’t let Anthony Eden around the back of the telly again,” says Q, when Moneypenny opens the door, his hair wet from the rain and his coat loose and open, a dragon roaring beneath the strap of his laptop bag.  
  
“ _Geoff_ ,” says Moneypenny, “It’s three in the bloody morning, I thought you were here to kill me.”  
  
“No, you didn’t,” says Q, frowning, “I would never have used the front door if I was here to kill you, there’s a window around the back of the house that’s much more--”  
  
“I am holding a gun  _right this second_ ,” says Moneypenny, stepping back to let him in, “Don’t finish that sentence. Well, finish that sentence in the morning, when you will be making my back window more secure.”  
  
“I’m sure it’s fine,” says Q, running a hand through his sodden hair, “Most government assassins aren’t as skinny as me.”  
  
“None of the ones I’ve met, certainly,” says Moneypenny, and then she sighs, clicks the safety on her gun, says, “You can sleep on the sofa if you promise not to dismantle anything before five am.”  
  
“But the telly--” starts Q, and Moneypenny pulls at him to take off his coat, says, “Was not broken by my rottweiler. You’re jet-lagged again, aren’t you? Go in there and be quiet.”  
  
“Bond said I wasn’t dangerous,” says Q, sitting down heavily on Moneypenny’s sofa and pulling off his converse all-stars, and Moneypenny snorts, says, “Well, he didn’t see what you did to my radio last week. Lie down and don’t make any sudden phone calls, your department doesn’t want to start testing the Six mainframe until there’s at least some sunlight.”  
  
“Don’t get sunlight in the basement,” says Q, his eyes sliding closed, and Moneypenny smiles, says, “I know that, Geoff. I  _am_  in there every day.”  
  
  
  
  
  
He wakes up on Moneypenny’s sofa to Anthony Eden licking his face and Moneypenny taking a picture with his phone.  
  
“I’m going to short out everything you love,” he says, bitterly, and Moneypenny smiles sweetly, says, “But if you do  _that_ , I won’t give you any coffee.”  
  
  
  
  
  
“I’m impressed,” says Bond, and Q pulls his hands out of the inside of a particularly nasty IED, and says, “Thank you. Why?”  
  
“I saw who dropped you off this morning,” says Bond, smirking, and Q frowns, says, “You’re impressed that I got Moneypenny to drive me anywhere? I suppose that is, technically, impressive.”  
  
“I’m impressed because you must have gone straight from the airport,” says Bond, “And you were rambling about Ada Lovelace by the end of the flight, so I’ve got no idea how you got  _anything_  done. Do you usually refuse to sleep on foreign missions?”  
  
“It’s not worth sleeping if I’m only out there eighteen hours,” says Q, distractedly, “Now either hand me that blowtorch or go away, some of us have work to do, you know.”  
  
  
  
  
  
There have been seven Qs before him. As predecessors go, it’s not a hell of a lot. There are even more 00s in the field at any given time than there have been Qs, although this is not a fact any average 00 likes to be reminded of. He’s twenty six, has a doctorate in systems engineering, and an arrest record longer than his arm. He’s twenty six, single, although he does have a rather lovely cat, and was recruited in a police station. He’s twenty six, can put together a Kalashnikov with his eyes closed, likes classical music and surreal comedy and Modernist American novels, and there is one, if usually  _only_  one, similarity between him and a 00.  
  
Both, if they judge it necessary, have a license to kill.  
  
  
  
  
  
“Come on, then,” says Moneypenny, at six o’clock, and Q slams something on his workbench, pulls his goggles off, says, “Come on where? What did I agree to, I forgot?”  
  
“My telly’s still broken, absent-minded professor,” says Moneypenny, and Q shakes his head, says, “No, I’m not fixing it.”  
  
“You left a shoe under my sofa,” says Moneypenny, pointedly, and Q looks up and twitches a little at her expression, says, “Is that where that went? Good thing I forgot that pair in your hallway last week, isn’t it? Oh, wait. What? No. I’m going to build you a new one.”  
  
“You’re going to  _build_  me a  _television_?” says Moneypenny, and when she smiles at him all he can do is nod, says, “Is that-- why would that be weird? I built my own phone.”  
  
“Of  _course_  you think it isn’t weird,” says Moneypenny, “Get your coat on, boy wonder, I’m buying you dinner.”  
  
“But Miss Moneypenny, people will  _talk_ ,” says Q, sarcastically, and Moneypenny smiles knowingly, says, “ _James_ , you mean.”  
  
“Ooh,  _James_ ,” parrots Q, and Moneypenny throws back her head and laughs, says, with great finality, “Did you have a point you wanted to make,  _Geoff_?”  
  
“Of course not,” says Q, holding out his arm for her to take, “Let’s get the most disgusting thing we can find and talk about absolutely everyone. Let’s bring Antony Eden, I love it when wide boys see you walking him. Their mouths hit the floor, it’s brilliant.”  
  
“Men do tell me that rather often,” says Moneypenny, mysteriously, and walks to the door, taps her thigh, says, with a wicked smile, “Heel, boy.”  
  
  
  
  
  
They walk home through Clapham at eleven at night, Anthony Eden’s lead wrapped around Q’s fingers and Moneypenny’s high heels clacking over uneven pavements. Antony Eden pulls Q under a bridge before Q has time to stop him, and a voice in the darkness says, “Gimme all your fuckin’ money, cunt.”  
  
“Oh, look,” says Q, entirely flat, “We’re getting mugged.”  
  
“He’s a fuckin’ genius,” says the mugger, whose knife glints silver in the low light, “Now shut up and give me your wallet or the bitch gets it.”  
  
“ _What_  did you just call her,” says Q, and if his voice was flat before, now it’s eerie, distant and cold, and he drags on Anthony Eden’s leash, does not move a single other muscle.  
  
“Down boy,” says Moneypenny, as Anthony Eden growls, and as the mugger recoils slightly, Moneypenny smiles, small and vicious, says to him, “Just so you’re aware, I wasn’t talking to the  _dog_.”  
  
“Him?” says the mugger, incredulous, “He looks like a fuckin’  _pipe-cleaner_.”  
  
“Is that a switchblade?” says Q, quietly, nodding to himself, “Yes, good, excellent. All I need, then, isn’t it?”  
  
It’s very fast after that.  
  
  
  
  
  
“I expect this sort of horseshit from  _Bond_ ,” says M, her arms folded across her chest, “You’re supposed to know better, Q. Honestly, it’s like herding cats.”  
  
“I’m very sorry, Ma’am,” says Q, his shoulders hunched, tapping a distracted finger on the arm of his chair, and M frowns, says, “I am the head of the British Secret Intelligence Service, young man. Who did you  _think_  you were talking to? I can tell when you’re lying, man, don’t be foolish.”  
  
“I thought he-- Moneypenny,” says Q, and M relaxes slightly, says, “Oh. Well, then. I suppose he’ll live. Go and clean up, it’s murder getting blood out of this carpet, it really is.”  
  
  
  
  
  
“You’re such a stupid bugger,” says Moneypenny, and hugs him so hard he thinks she might have broken something.  
  
“You’ll give the boy ideas,” says Bond, behind her, feet up on Moneypenny’s desk, the sleeves of his dress shirt rolled up and a nasty-looking burn across one of his cheekbones.  
  
“He doesn’t  _need_  any more ideas,” says Moneypenny, sharply, “Honestly, Geoff, did you really have to do that? Us and a rottweiler against an idiot with a knife he didn’t know how to use? God, you’re impossible.”  
  
“ _Geoff_ ,” mouths Bond, behind Moneypenny’s head, and Q squeezes Moneypenny’s upper arm as reassuringly as he knows how, says, “Shouldn’t you be out seducing super-models at this hour, Bond?”  
  
“Take the lady home, there’s a good chap,” says Bond, amused, and Q scrubs at his newly-clean hair, says, “She’s taking me home, M says I’m not allowed to drive for at least three days.”  
  
“Shaky hands?” says Bond, in a tone which probably is, for him, sympathetic, and Q does not let himself look at Moneypenny, replies, “Not with all the bombs I’ve defused, Bond, but nice try.”  
  
  
  
  
  
“You really didn’t have to do that,” says Monypenny, and then she grabs his house keys from his hand as he tries and fails once more to get the key in the lock, “But you did, so that means I really have to do _this_.”  
  
“What do you mean, you have to--” says Q, and Moneypenny shakes her head, pulls their bodies flush together and kisses him like the world’s about to end.  
  
“I want to be clear,” she says, pulling back and leaving him panting and desperate and more than a little confused, “This is not gratitude. I am not a reward. I was going to wait a little longer, because James thinks he has it all worked out and there are few things I enjoy more than discombobulating that man, but here we are. I have wanted to do this for quite some time. Did you not know that? Oh my God, you _didn’t_. Oh,  _Geoffrey_.”  
  
“I, er,” says Q, and Moneypenny laughs, says, “We’re not going to do anything tonight. Tonight, you are going to put your pyjamas on, and  _I_  am going to put a pair of  _your_  pyjamas on, and we are going to watch Fawlty Towers until we both fall asleep. Okay?”  
  
“If you don’t want anything to happen you probably shouldn’t wear my pyjamas,” says Q, and Moneypenny laughs again as his smile turns wicked, says, “Noted. Come on, get that skinny arse inside.”  
  
  
  
  
  
“Bond really thinks we’re sleeping together?” says Q, and Moneypenny burrows further under the covers, says, “Aren’t we?”  
  
“You know what I mean,” says Q, rolling his eyes, “I didn’t pay any attention to him, half the things that man says are about his penis, or somebody’s penis, and where it’s being put, I just, you know, blank them out by now.”  
  
“If it makes you feel any better, he thinks I’m in love with him, but you’re in love with me and I am thinking of him while we’re together,” says Moneypenny, and Q says, totally seriously, “You’re not?”  
  
“Of  _course_  not,” says Moneypenny, indignant, until she catches Q’s eye, sparkling with mischief, and notices that his shoulders are starting to shake.  
  
“You  _bastard_ ,” she says, kicking him lightly in the shins, and he laughs out loud, says, “But it’s just so  _preposterous_ , I’d be the last man alive you’d pick as a Bond substitute, I think he could probably fit his hands around my waist, for God’s sake.”  
  
“He’s a pretty face,” says Moneypenny, slipping her hand into Q’s with a small smile, “But there aren’t many lights on upstairs.”  
  
“Can’t argue with you there,” says Q, and Moneypenny taps at his forehead with her other hand, says, “But you have all of your lights on at all times.”  
  
“Can’t argue with that either,” says Q, and Moneypenny elbows him sharply, says, “It’s just lucky for you that I find a very  _specific_  kind of arrogance attractive, isn’t it?”  
  
“Yes,” says Q, honestly, “It really is.”  
  
Moneypenny kisses him at that, soft and light and tucks her head into the crook of his neck, sighing when he lifts a hand to stroke her hair.  
  
“Now,” says Q, “We really ought to mess with him a little more, shouldn’t we? After all, it’s only fair.”  
  
“The villains really should have tried harder to recruit you,” says Moneypenny, her voice shot through with delight, and Q laughs, says, smugly, “Yes. I know.”  
  
  
  
  
  
He keeps a gun in six different pieces in his drywall, and semtex in his bathroom cabinet. His toothbrush conceals a six-inch blade, and there’s a gas mask inside his oven. There’s a tattoo only Moneypenny has ever seen, scrawled across his ribs, and he got it in prison. (Later, on a mission that goes a tad wrong, he’ll pass it off as a drunken mistake, and only Bond’s eyes will look knowing.) He has a cat called Babbage, more degrees than he knows what to do with, and a beautiful girl in his bed.  
  
He wakes up the beautiful girl, and says, “Tonight, then?”  
  
“Tonight,” says Moneypenny, “And a snog in the toilets, for good measure.”  
  
  
  
  
  
“I hope Miss Moneypenny was appropriately grateful,” says Bond, gauze on his cheek and a particularly filthy leer on his face, and Q frowns, says, “She made me a full English, if that’s what you mean?”  
  
“I sincerely hope you are fucking with me,” says Bond, and Q lets his eyes turn wicked, but only for a second, says, “Effing with you, Bond? Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it.”  
  
  
  
  
  
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” says Bond, looking stunned and more than a little impressed, and Q rubs at the lipstick on his neck, says, “I’m quite sure I don’t know what you mean.”  
  
“How on earth did a skinny little kid like you get a girl like that?” says Bond, and Q laughs, says, “I’m not  _only_  a skinny little kid, Bond.”  
  
“Hmm,” says Bond, “That mugger’s still unconscious, is he?”  
  
“Should bloody hope so,” says Q, and then cocks his head, bites at his lip, says, “Also,  _duck_ \--”  
  
  
  
  
  
He was never supposed to be dangerous. He was never supposed to crash the FBI mainframe at eleven. He was never supposed to lead a hacking network so insidious he could have made Wikileaks look like a badly-timed sneeze. He was never supposed to know how to close a switchblade in mid-air. He was never supposed to stand up to a 00 and see respect looking back at him. He was never supposed to get a gun. He was never supposed to get the girl.  
  
Maybe he has learnt something from his 00’s. Rules, they’re made to be broken.  
  
  
  
  
  
“Impress me,” says Moneypenny, and Q smirks, says, “Well, I am good with my hands.”  
  
“I have it on good authority that you build your own tech, too,” says Moneypenny, and Q blushes, if only a little, says, “Well, I’ll make you a present for next time, then.”  
  
“Excellent,” says Moneypenny, and he kisses her neck, her mouth, her thighs.  
  
“I don’t want you to feel like you have something to prove,” she says, as he slides her knickers off, and he grins against her skin, says, “What if I want to?”  
  
“Go right ahead,” she says, breathless, and he licks into her, presses his tongue against her, then gets two fingers inside her and lets her ride them, their chests pressed together, her lips hot against his and closing around his name a hundred times.  
  
“I’m going to do to you what I just did to your hand,” says Moneypenny, and climbs on top of him, is as good as her word.  
  
“Bloody hell,” says Q, after he comes, and Moneypenny smiles into his skin, says, “Now, see, James would never have let me take charge like that.”  
  
“James is a bloody fool,” says Q, “Hold me down next time, if that’s okay?”  
  
“I love you,” says Moneypenny, wrinkling her nose with easy affection, and he says it again a hundred times, into her ear and her skin and her mouth, and it’s easy, it’s all easy, and everything is good, better than good, and she holds him down until he screams, and that, that is so much better than good could  _ever_  be.  
  
  
  
  
  
“She looks like she’d break you in half,” says Bond, musing, and Q puts the rifle down on the table with a heavy clunk, says, “This is the only comment I’m ever going to make about this, 007: what if I  _want_  her to?”  
  
“ _Shit_ ,” says Bond, appreciatively, and Q manages not to blush, just, says, “Quite. Now, tell me again so I know you know, what does this button do?”  
  
  
  
  
  
He was never supposed to be dangerous. He was never supposed to have the name that is not at all a name. He was never supposed to be in the field, but once he pressed a gun against a warlord’s head and whispered  _wrong_  when he told him he didn’t have the stones. He was never supposed to get the gun, or the girl, but that’s the trick to it: he didn’t. He’s Q. He’s the most dangerous man in Europe, and he made his own gun. He’s Q. He likes bad telly about robots and Beethoven and roleplaying games, and his girl? She got him.


End file.
